This half-serious piece is ignorable. I just wish the international pressure he mentioned actually existed, or that the President had any inkling to act on the issue of metric conversion.
I've said a few times on this discussion group that the biggest problem is the combination of the undemocratic nature of the US Senate (single senators can block action) and our inherently corrupt campaign finance system (Senators use that undemocratic power to serve monied private interests). The result is an inability of the US Congress to act in the public interest when powerful private interests might be harmed. This is both why the US stands alone among industrialized countries in not adopting the world's standard system of measurement, and why we stand alone in not providing universal healthcare for our citizens. The current healthcare debate has placed this glaring fault in our democracy in full view once again. We don't need a revolution to change this, just common sense campaign finance reform and, as Thomas Friedman wrote in the NY Times last week, a change in Senate rules to end filibusters. Neither are unthinkable. From: Pat Naughtin Sent: Sunday, December 27, 2009 7:53 PM To: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:46307] Column by Terry Dickson Dear All, In this column at http://jacksonville.com/news/georgia/2009-12-27/story/my_list_of_wishes_for_the_new_year Terry Dickson writes: I hope our president doesn't bow to international pressure and put the U.S. on the metric system. We'd have to convert miles to kilometers and dabs and smidgens to deciliters and centiliters. Is this an important column that deserves a response? Cheers, Pat Naughtin Author of the ebook, Metrication Leaders Guide, that you can obtain from http://metricationmatters.com/MetricationLeadersGuideInfo.html PO Box 305 Belmont 3216, Geelong, Australia Phone: 61 3 5241 2008 Metric system consultant, writer, and speaker, Pat Naughtin, has helped thousands of people and hundreds of companies upgrade to the modern metric system smoothly, quickly, and so economically that they now save thousands each year when buying, processing, or selling for their businesses. Pat provides services and resources for many different trades, crafts, and professions for commercial, industrial and government metrication leaders in Asia, Europe, and in the USA. Pat's clients include the Australian Government, Google, NASA, NIST, and the metric associations of Canada, the UK, and the USA. See http://www.metricationmatters.com for more metrication information, contact Pat at pat.naugh...@metricationmatters.com or to get the free 'Metrication matters' newsletter go to: http://www.metricationmatters.com/newsletter to subscribe.
